MOVIE REVIEW - Delivery Man

The new Vince Vaughn comedy Delivery Man is new this week.  This will be a love/hate movie.

If you love Vince Vaughn you may love this movie simply because he is in it.  Or it may be a bit too tame for you.   There is no question that this is a very different kind of Vaughn movie that may attract a new audience for him.  And that is a good thing overall.   But for many, there will just not be enough locker room humor and shocking content, as there is none here.  In short, if you are going to see Vaughn be "typical Vaughn",   you will not recognize him here.

Delivery Man is an original story about a character who is anything but original, Dave (Vaughn).  David is a guy about 45 years old and is a grown man/child.   He is a delivery driver for his fathers meat company and is an irresponsible goof.   He has no real life, and suffers from great immaturity.   He is horribly in debt, and lies to his family, friends and his girlfriend.  In short, it's the kind of character Vaughn has played 1,000 times before.  But it does get a bit more original.

It turns out that between 1991 and 1994 he donated 692 times to a sperm bank as a young man.  And as it turns out, his donations were used 532 times and unknowingly created that many children who are now mostly grown.  As he is notified, he starts to understand that he needs to grow up, and becomes obsessed in meeting his "kids" without their knowledge.   The clinic is begin sued to release his identity, and he is fighting it, as he thinks he wishes to remain anonymous.   But as we roll on, he starts to have a change of heart as his current girlfriend turns up pregnant by him.  Will David finally grow up, even a little? It's not the prefect comedy, but it's alright.

This movie is being hammered by many critics, and frankly I don't know why.  This is a fun, little movie that has a fun little story to tell.   It is not laced with vile, gross humor and offensive language.  It develops characters and has some fun along the way.  It's not great, it's not a movie that you will watch 10 times. But it is fun to see Vaughn go in a different direction, and make a movie that is far more mass appeal, and not the 7th grade boys locker room variety.  No one is trying to say this will go down with Wedding Crashers, or some of the others, but what it is saying is that there is room for all kinds of comedies, even the tame ones.

There are some mild laughs and there are just enough soft moments to make this real.  Of course, this could never really happen, and the 532 number may be a bit ridiculous, but you do feel what he is going through, even though you can't relate. There are some very relateable parenting moments too in this flick that do give it a sense of real, staged in this fantasy.

Delivery Man. Give it a Vaughn a break.  I applaud him for not making the same move over and over again. Even if he is kind of the same character to a degree.  Fun, light.